The Biggest Tech Challenges of Today's Digital Publishers

Among the wide range of concerns are ad blockers, a lack of technological resources needed to support all ad formats and traffic, an overreliance on social media, and the prevalence of irrelevant ads.

1. Ad Blockers

With an estimated 200 million people around the world using ad-blocking programs, this technology has long been a growing source of tension in the ad tech industry. Sources estimate that ad blockers cost publishers almost $22 billion in lost revenue in 2015.

Can publishers find alternatives for ad-blocked revenue? Anti-ad-blocking start-ups and technology have started to provide solutions. Some publishers have begun blocking visitors to their sites if they've turned on their ad blockers.

Other publishers charge ad blocker users for access or ask users to disable their ad blockers in exchange for a user experience with fewer ads. Working with ad blockers on whitelisting certain ad placements or ad formats is also proving effective.

Meanwhile, some publishers prefer to engage in a (futile) race with ad blockers to see who can bypass each other's codes first.

Other alternatives include displaying unobtrusive ads, like native advertising units, which may not be detected by ad blockers. But that requires publishers to have certain technological skills.